Weeds had grown over the years, scattering the plot with tangled yellow, gnarly brown, and knotted green. They grew fast and unruly, and almost mockingly, but John had stopped pulling them a few months after he met Mary. He stopped visiting altogether after six. The weeds grew and weaved and reached for the trees, using the headstone as their personal ladder to the heavens. After nine months, the words were no longer visible, but the plot's voluntary gardener still did not return. After thirteen, the ground had almost been forgotten all together; everyone had moved on. When twenty-six had ticked by, the weeds had veiled the headstone completely, but only a on rare occasion did the plot cross the blogger's mind. On the thirty month anniversary, however, the lonely stretch of abandoned grass got a visitor.
Sherlock Holmes had lost half his body mass, and his suits now hung like weights from his skeletal shoulders. He stood in front of the tiny plot, trying to make out the words under the offending foliage. "Sorry I let it get to this." John said, coming to stand by his side.
"It's fine. It wasn't really my grave anyway." Sherlock shrugged a bit, his suit jacket falling heavy onto his frame again.
"I'm apologizing because I was told it was, and I let it get buried. Whether real or not, I'm sorry." John grabbed a handful of weeds and yanked, the words 'Sherlock Holmes' gleaming in the exposed space.
The detective smiled, an occurrence that had never truly ghosted across the thin face over the last two and a half years. "And I'm sorry I gave you a grave to upkeep and neglect." He weaved his fingers into a section of weeds, and pulled another chunk away.
The two friends continued their pattern of apologies and weed removal, until they ran out of words they'd left unspoken. The greens and browns and yellows were finally eradicated, and the plot looked as it did thirty months prior when the hole had been dug and John laid his friend to rest. The good doctor grabbed the sides of the headstone, and pulled until it sprung loose. "Good to have you back."
Sherlock smiled even bigger and dropped the seed into the dirt upturned by the stone. "Good to be back." He pushed the dirt over the seed and stood to help John haul the stone away.
After a few months, roots began to form, and no one visited the empty plot. After six, life could be seen growing and breaking ground. When thirteen rolled around, the tree was just a baby. After twenty-six, the tree had grown up and it's roots stretched under the place it's planter had been rumored to sleep, making love and life out of betrayal and death. And after thirty, the two friends returned just one more time.
Sherlock reached up and plucked an apple from a low branch, bit a large chunk out of it, and offered it to John. The doctor smiled, and took a bite as well. Sherlock pulled another apple down and sat under the branches. As the sun set below them on their secluded little hill, the friends raised their apples in toast. "To retirement." Sherlock proclaimed.
"To growing old in peace." They had never smiled bigger before taking another bite of the apple.